Daily Telegraph Cryptic No 27794
Hints and tips by pommers
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BD Rating – Difficulty *** – Enjoyment ****
Listen very carefully, I shall say this only once. The 2Kiwis aren’t here this week. Actually I don’t think they’ve ever been here as they’re usually there but today they’re neither here nor there because they’re where most of you guys are. That means they can’t do the blog so a substitute was organsied but he’s had to cry off so I’ve moved from my slot tomorrow to do today’s and said substitute for today has moved to tomorrow to cover for me who’s doing today. Simples!
I’ve been looking forward to this as it’s been quite a while since I last blogged a Jay puzzle and I always enjoy them. This was no exception as the Wednesday Wizard has come up trumps again. Perhaps a tad trickier than some of his puzzles have been recently or is that just me being a bit slow this morning?
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Daily Telegraph Cryptic No 27788
Hints and tips by 2Kiwis
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BD Rating – Difficulty *** – Enjoyment ***
Less than a week now before we leave for our brief visit to where most of you live. All very exciting and one of the highlights will be meeting at least some of you at The George on 19th May.
This will be the last regular Wednesday blog we will be doing for a few weeks although we hope that we will not be totally out of touch.
Good stuff from Jay once again today. The NE corner was once more the trickiest one for us.
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Daily Telegraph Cryptic No 27782
Hints and tips by 2Kiwis
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BD Rating – Difficulty *** – Enjoyment ****
The cold weather that we wrote about last week turned out to be just a warning shot across the bows. The woolly hats and long trousers have been put back in the drawer for the meantime and the wood container for the fire put back in the shed.
A few clues today had us beak scratching. Overall, we found the puzzle pleasantly challenging and amusing.
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Daily Telegraph Cryptic No 27776
Hints and tips by 2Kiwis
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BD Rating – Difficulty *** – Enjoyment ****
Winter has arrived here with attitude. A cold southerly front moved up over the country a couple of days ago bringing wide-spread snow in the South Island and even snow on the hills to the east of us. Unheard of in April! Our daily walk went from light shirt, shorts and sandals one day to long trousers, thick jackets and woolly hats the next. Whatever happened to Autumn?
Jay, by contrast, has been much less changeable and given us another entertaining puzzle to blog.
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Daily Telegraph Cryptic No 27770
Hints and tips by 2Kiwis
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BD Rating – Difficulty *** – Enjoyment ***
Over Easter our clocks moved back to GMT plus 12 hours where they will stay for the winter. This means for us that it is not so dark in the early morning, but more importantly, we get access to the puzzles for solving and blogging at 11am instead of the summer timetable of 1pm.
Jay seems to have thrown in a couple of curve balls this week to keep us on our toes, but good fun as ever.
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Daily Telegraph Cryptic No 27764
Hints and tips by 2Kiwis
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BD Rating – Difficulty ** – Enjoyment ***
Tena koutou, tena koutou, tena koutou katoa. We thought last week’s greeting worked rather well so have used it again this week. Today is a glorious Autumn day. Slightly crispy and misty first thing this morning, but now it is beautifully clear, calm and sunny.
Nice stuff from Jay once again, not too tricky.
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Daily Telegraph Cryptic No 27758
Hints and tips by 2Kiwis
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BD Rating – Difficulty *** – Enjoyment ****
Tena koutou, tena koutou, tena koutou katoa (Greetings, greetings, greetings to you all). We thought it was about time that we introduced another Maori greeting. This is a somewhat formal one. Perhaps one that would be used if a group of visitors are being welcomed to a marae or meeting house.
Jay has kept us well entertained once again this week.
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Daily Telegraph Cryptic No 27752
Hints and tips by 2Kiwis
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BD Rating – Difficulty **** – Enjoyment ****
Our news has been dominated this last week by tropical cyclone Pam. She was a very severe, force 5, storm that developed way north of us and caused huge devastation and some loss of life in Vanuatu a few days ago. She then headed south towards New Zealand, but following the usual pattern, lost some intensity as she moved out of the tropics and passed just to the east of NZ. On the way, she did take a back-handed swipe at some of the coastal areas in the NE but no major damage resulted. We, on the SW coast of the North Island hardly noticed a thing.
Today’s puzzle from Jay we found a little breezier than normal, and it brought us loads of fun.
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Daily Telegraph Cryptic No 27746
Hints and tips by 2Kiwis
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BD Rating – Difficulty *** – Enjoyment ****
The weather now has the suggestion of change about it. We are still having mainly warm sunny days, but we are getting some rain at times now and the mornings have the feeling of “season of mists and mellow fruitfulness”.
We had a load of firewood arrive this morning, ready for cosy winter evenings in front of the fire coming up. Looking forward to our Wednesday homework arriving at 11am instead of 1pm when the clocks get rescheduled in a few weeks.
Another fine offering from our consistent quality setter, Jay. Took us a while to get into the top few, but it flowed smoothly after that.
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Daily Telegraph Cryptic No 27740
Hints and tips by 2Kiwis
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BD Rating – Difficulty ** – Enjoyment ***
Yesterday, on our regular walk, we saw two black swans swimming in the estuary. They are really Australian birds but are well established in NZ. We often have them visiting our estuary as a safe refuge during the shooting season which starts in May. Speaking of travelling birds and May neatly leads into our latest news. We have used the excuse of research for the next writing project by one of us, to make a short visit to UK during May. We will be based at Kingston upon Thames.
Enough about us. Let’s concentrate on today’s puzzle from Jay. Generally we found it straightforward apart from a real stumbling block in the NE.
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